


Dangerous

by fallintosanity (yopumpkinhead)



Series: Control Group [5]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/fallintosanity
Summary: But a Turk was the last thing he needed right now. If what remained of Shinra found out about Luca...Cloud and Luca get an unexpected visitor.
Series: Control Group [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998373
Comments: 17
Kudos: 107





	Dangerous

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place about five months after [Scared](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674297).
> 
> Also, I swear I'm still working on both my longfics! My beta sent me a heartbreaking picture of kid!Sephiroth and I had to write a bit of fluff to make up for it.

Cloud snapped awake. 

For a second he couldn’t figure out what had woken him. The apartment above the Seventh Heaven was quiet and empty; Tifa had taken Denzel and Marlene with her to do the household shopping. The kids were supposed to be in school, but after Denzel had woken up the entire household at four AM with a screaming nightmare, Tifa had let them take a sick day. But she’d needed to pick up dinner supplies, and Luca had desperately needed a nap, so she’d taken the older kids with her while Cloud got Luca down. The boy had been tired and cranky, and it had taken ages to get him to cooperate.

At least whatever had woken Cloud hadn’t disturbed the boy: he was still sound asleep, curled up on Cloud’s chest with his head tucked under Cloud’s chin and his tiny fist in his mouth. Cloud did a quick status check, trying to figure out what had woken him. The book he’d been reading to Luca when Cloud himself had apparently dozed off had slipped to the side, tucked between Cloud’s hip and the back of the couch. The Fusion Blade was propped against the far wall, where he could get to it in seconds. The water heater was running, a low hum at the edge of hearing. 

The loose board on the fourth step up from the bar level squeaked.

Cloud was instantly on alert, rolling to his feet with one arm wrapped around Luca to hold him in place. If it was Tifa and the kids, they’d be louder - talking and laughing, the kids’ shoes clattering noisily on the wooden stairs. But thieves knew better than to pick on the Seventh Heaven and its beautiful-but-deadly proprietor, and Cloud couldn’t think who else would be trying to sneak into the apartment.

Then a pale hand reached around the door frame at the top of the steps and rapped hard on the wood. “Yo!” a familiar voice called. “Anyone home?” 

Cloud cursed inwardly. He should’ve known it was a Turk; they didn’t care about petty things like _locked doors._ But a Turk was the last thing he needed right now. If what remained of Shinra found out about Luca... 

Before he could decide what to do about it, Reno stuck his head around the door frame and looked around, grinning when he spotted Cloud. “Yo,” he said again, and came the rest of the way into the apartment, undeterred by Cloud’s scowl. 

Then he seemed to register Luca still bundled up against Cloud’s chest. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“Shh,” Cloud hissed, because Luca had begun to stir. With the hand that wasn’t holding Luca in place, he rubbed the boy’s back, and Luca settled again. 

“Very domestic,” Reno said with a smirk, though thank Odin he dropped his voice to just above a whisper. 

“What do you want?” Cloud demanded, equally quiet. 

“Got a delivery job for ya,” Reno said. 

“You couldn’t have called?”

A shrug, which Cloud knew Reno well enough to tell wasn’t entirely casual. “I was in the area anyway.” 

Cloud narrowed his eyes and waited. 

“What?” Reno protested. “Aren’t you gonna ask me about the job?” 

Cloud took a pointed step closer to the Fusion Blade. 

Reno fell back toward the doorway, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said. “We heard you’d picked up a new kid, and the boss was curious.” 

“My personal life isn’t Shinra’s business,” Cloud growled, and took another step toward his sword. 

“I think we all wish it wasn’t,” Reno said. His smile didn’t touch his eyes. “But your personal life has had an... outsized effect on Shinra over the past few years.” 

“Not my fault,” Cloud ground out. “Go away. Before you wake him up.” 

“Him?” Reno blinked, eyes going to Luca, and Cloud inwardly kicked himself. All Reno could see of Luca right now was the boy’s back and the long curtain of his pale hair, which in the warm light of the apartment’s lamp could pass for a very light blond. If Reno had thought Luca was a girl, it would have been safer to let him keep believing that. But now Reno was studying the boy with a Turk’s sharp eyes. 

“Out,” Cloud snapped. 

Reno didn’t move. “Cute kid. What’s his name?” 

Luca twitched and sat up abruptly, making a confused noise as he looked around. Cloud tried to get his free hand up to the boy’s head before he could turn far enough for Reno to see his eyes - but Reno sucked in a sharp breath and Cloud knew he hadn’t been fast enough. 

For a long, tense minute, Reno stared at the boy. Luca rested his head against Cloud’s collarbone, still half-asleep with his thumb in his mouth. But his eyes - slit-pupiled, green, and terrifyingly familiar to anyone who’d known Shinra’s SOLDIER General - were open as he stared back curiously at Reno. 

Finally Reno looked up at Cloud. “He’s—”

“His name,” Cloud said, “is Luca.” He lowered his hand to the grip of the Fusion Blade where it rested against the wall beside him. “And if you tell anyone about him - _anyone_ \- I will kill you, your boss, and everyone with any connection to Shinra.” The words came out flat and deadly, not a threat but a statement of fact. 

From the way Reno’s eyes went hard, he clearly understood. “Whatever you say, Strife,” he said, and tossed a wave that didn’t quite manage to be casual as he backed away toward the stairs. “I’ll call with the details about that delivery. See you around.”

Cloud didn’t move until he heard the bar’s front door open and close again, then he went to the window that looked out over the street. Thankfully, Reno was actually climbing into a sleek black car instead of lurking somewhere in the bar to spy further, though Cloud waited until the car had vanished down the street to relax. He went back to the couch and sank down on it, blowing out a frustrated sigh.

“Who’s that?” Luca asked. 

“Nobody,” Cloud said.

Luca frowned up at him. Not Sephiroth’s scornful expression, but Tifa’s little disapproving pout, and something in Cloud’s chest eased. Luca said, “You were gonna hit him with your sword.” 

“He’s very dangerous,” Cloud said, then hesitated, not sure how to explain the Turks or Shinra in a way a three-and-a-half-year-old would understand. Finally he settled for, “He might have tried to hurt you. I made sure he won’t.” 

“Oh,” Luca said. “Okay.” He yawned and snuggled against Cloud’s chest, apparently already on his way back to sleep. 

Just like that. 

Cloud huffed out a disbelieving little laugh. Luca trusted Cloud to protect him, as if it didn’t matter that Reno was a Turk - one of the most dangerous people alive, both in his own right and because of the man he answered to. As if Shinra knowing about the boy - not a remnant, not one of Hojo’s failed experiments, but Sephiroth himself - wasn’t a threat to the entire Planet and all who lived on it. 

But then, it really _didn’t_ matter, did it? Cloud had meant what he’d said, and Reno knew it. If anyone tried to hurt Luca, or turn him into a weapon for their own purposes, he’d kill them all. 

Cloud settled back on the couch, shifted Luca to a more comfortable position, and closed his eyes. There was still half an hour before Tifa and the kids were due home, and he and Luca had a nap to get back to.


End file.
